


One of the Lucky Ones

by newredshoes



Category: Agent Carter (TV)
Genre: Canon Disabled Character, Gen, Post-World War II, Pre-Canon, Veterans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-15
Updated: 2016-05-15
Packaged: 2018-06-08 14:35:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6858988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/newredshoes/pseuds/newredshoes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The anniversaries we want to forget will always sneak up on us. Sousa, for instance, wants nothing more than to move on from the blast that took his leg. Carter is more tight-lipped about the things she's lost. Neither of them is willing to stay back-benched.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One of the Lucky Ones

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LeesaPerrie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LeesaPerrie/gifts).



> All the companies and places in this story are real, including the Electric Boat Company, but mea culpa, I have fudged the timeline of the Battle of the Bulge a little. Hey, MCU history gets weird with real history anyway. And [old Penn Station](http://www.citylab.com/design/2013/10/10-gorgeous-nostalgic-photos-new-yorks-old-penn-station/7384/) really was once pink.

The German line crumbled two days after Daniel Sousa got hit. By that time, there had been no bandages for three weeks, no sulfa or iodine for four days and no morphine at all unless your field medic had had some extra. Sousa didn’t go out heroically — it was just bad luck. An overhead shell got him before he could get to a foxhole. He came to triage full of shards from the treeburst. His leg was shredded, but there was a chance they could save it, so he lay shaking on a cot, reciting molecular formulas and artillery calculations. Hazlitt was the first to stop by. “Too bad you weren’t hit before Christmas,” he said with a grin. “We were shacked up in the cathedral before the Krauts took it out.”

Nobody got any warning or announcements. The hospital crew simply began hauling the worst cases onto stretchers and hurrying them outside. “What’s going on?” Sousa slurred as they transferred him off his berth. He was dizzy with pain and, as it would later turn out, sepsis.

“We’re getting you to Jodenville,” the litter bearer by his head said. Sousa tried lifting his head. That was outside Bastogne.

“What happened?”

The sun washed out everything, even the bitter blue sky. “Your lucky day, soldier,” the litter bearer said. “Captain America came through for us at last.” Sousa tried to press for more, but the orderly was yelling, and Sousa got loaded into an ambulance with four other guys and two medics. Nobody else seemed to know anything, just that the roads were clear and the evacuation hospital was finally within reach.

Sousa lost the leg. They flew him first to Dover, then to Providence by way of Newfoundland. The initial amputation was so rushed that it took four more surgeries to set it right. Ten days after the shell in Bastogne caught him, Sousa was convalescing at a commandeered resort on the wrong side of the Atlantic. His squad leader wrote him to say that he’d snatched a glimpse of the man — that all the Howling Commandos were there, and they were just like you saw in the newsreels. By the time the letter arrived, the squad leader was dead, picked off by a sniper in Hagenau. Sousa fantasized about clobbering the entire Allied army with his ill-fitting prosthetic.

John Basilone, the hero of Guadalcanal, died in February on the first day of Iwo Jima. When newscasters announced the presumed loss of Captain Rogers just two weeks later, a pall fell over the national conversation. At the rehabilitation hospital, guys picked fights with each other to keep from feeling guilty.

“Didn’t he get you out of the Bulge?” asked Lucasic, who’d lost a whole leg, most of the other foot and fine motor control in his left hand in Sicily.

“Him, General Patton and some Kraut artillery.” Sousa kept his nose in the tribute issue of _LIFE_ , retaining nothing.

Lucasic smoked like he was getting paid. He was nearly down to his filter. “You see him?”

Sousa sighed. “I didn’t, no.”

“Too bad, huh?” Lucasic took a deep drag and nodded to himself. “We’re still gonna beat ‘em.”

“We were still beating them before we knew he was dead,” he pointed out.

Two months later, when Sousa was back home in Elizabeth, New Jersey, President Truman declared victory in Europe over the radio. Sousa’s parents and sisters all wept in the living room. Outside, people were hollering and cheering, dancing in the middle of the street. Sousa stayed by the radio. _Okay,_ he thought. _Okay. Something comes next._

*

His mother insisted, so he took the lunch with Father Ribeiro. Six months since V-E Day and still somehow the patriots weren’t lining up to hire a one-legged vet. Languishing only made everything worse, so Sousa took a job he’d once mocked, investigating claims for an insurance company in town. It wasn’t all paperwork and pen-pushing; most cases were either misunderstandings about the policy or poorly played-out fraud. It got him talking to people again. The claims that got him invested, either through their complexity or the client’s own demonstrable need for help, could absorb him for a time. But Sousa still couldn’t resign himself to a lifetime of desk jockeying. He’d been unstoppable his whole life, sociable and athletic and principled. This didn’t feel like having a purpose. He didn’t want to listen to an old man tell him to make his peace with it.

“You were always ones of his favorites,” his mother tried. “Maybe he can get you a job at the school? You might think about teaching, Daniel.”

Sousa walked to the diner. The prosthetic leg was never going to get more comfortable, and he needed the practice. It got his mind out of the circles it ran itself in. Almost a year was too long for anger and battle fatigue.

Father Ribeiro would have stuck out anywhere outside of a Goya painting. He was stark, knobby, still with a shock of black hair in his 60s. His whole face crinkled when he smiled. He rose out of the booth and embraced Sousa. “Daniel! You look very well.” He stepped back and took Sousa’s free hand between both of his. “Your mother tells me you’ve been reading Buber lately.”

“Ah, yes, we had it lying around.” He glanced at the man seated at the inside of the booth. He wore a noncommittal face, bulldoggish. “I didn’t realize we’d have company,” Sousa said, and held out his hand. “Daniel Sousa.”

“Pleased to meet you,” said the stranger. He had a firm, rough grip.

Ribeiro took his seat again, and indicated for Sousa to do the same. “Daniel, this is Roger Dooley. I wonder if you two may have served at the same time.”

“Thirty-fourth Infantry,” Dooley said; he’d been in North Africa and Italy the whole war.

Sousa dipped his head. “Five-oh-sixth.”

Dooley’s eyebrows went up. “Paratrooper?”

“Yes, sir.”

Dooley grunted. “Overlord?”

“Yes, sir. Market-Garden and Bastogne too.”

The waitress came over with coffee. The muscles stood out in her arms, along with constellations of scars — burns, probably. She still had calluses all over her palms; he’d bet she’d been building and fixing submarines at Electric Boat two weeks ago. Sousa thanked her, and didn’t miss the look that passed between Ribeiro and Dooley.

“Should I know something?” he said, pulling his mug closer.

Ribeiro leaned forward on his elbows. “Mr. Dooley came to me because his parish priest knew I’d spoken well of you. He’s looking for bright, capable young men to help him in New York.”

Dooley studied him. “Any chance you’d take government work again, Sousa?”

“I suppose that depends,” he said slowly. “Does my country need me?”

Dooley didn’t even look at the crutch, propped in the corner of Sousa’s side of the booth. “I’d say yes, based on what the good father’s been telling me.” It struck Sousa: Dooley hadn’t asked to discover his service record. He’d wanted to hear how Sousa talked about it. Dooley had come from New York totally prepared.

Sousa went for a self-effacing chuckle. “I can’t have done that well in chemistry, Father. It’s been eight years.”

Ribeiro shrugged. “What can I say? You stick in the mind, kid.”

“Sousa,” Dooley said. “Do you believe the war we just fought is really over?”

 _God, I hope so_ was on his lips, but he paused. “I think we skipped this. What was your role with the 34th, if I might ask?”

“S-2,” Dooley said. “Intelligence.”

*

The War Department must have been feeling generous, because the SSR brought on five people around the holidays. Sousa was one, but Jack Thompson beat him there by about three weeks. Thompson tended to start his sentences with “Well, in the Pacific…” with the other guys, but one look at Sousa and he simply fell back on “Try to keep up, Danny boy.” Sousa knew every Navy joke in the ETO, and deployed them any time Thompson crossed a line he didn’t like. There was no Army unity at the bureau, though: Dooley said they had equal rank, but right from the start, he leaned on Thompson without hiding it.

Still, it was a job. Despite the drawbacks, despite Thompson and sneering Krzeminski, it was a good job. It felt worthy. He had something to do other than relive the last one. The timing was right too — he’d lost the leg a year ago. Dooley took him aside his first week and asked if he was sleeping okay, but he’d thought nothing of it. Fact was, Sousa was a hair-trigger. At first he’d thought it was the learning curve; SSR work was like insurance claims in some ways, but much stranger and certainly more disturbing, and he stumbled more than once early on. He snapped at Patty one night at their parents’ as she complained about her job hunt. “Well, we can’t all be war heroes and get real work again once we’re kicked to the curb!” she retorted, and after that, once the table fell silent, Sousa realized he’d been ranting, at top volume. He hadn’t heard a word of what he’d said to them.

“I know I’m very lucky,” he said, red-faced, and didn’t meet anyone’s eye for the rest of the evening. He decided to commit to professionalism. His job took up most of his time anyway. That was a kind of discipline he’d been missing since coming home. It had kept him together in the military, and it would keep him from lashing out at the people who didn’t deserve it.

She came to take the final empty desk late in January. Sousa heard the wolf-whistles before he heard the high heels. He was deep in the donor records of a scholarship fund looking increasingly less likely to be funneling cash to known Hydra sympathizers. When he glanced up, she was almost past him. She kept her eyes front and center, her fists balled beneath the cuffs of her fitted wool coat.

“Switchboard’s back that way, sweetheart!” Van Houden called across the room, to hoots of laughter. Sousa peeked over his shoulder. There was something familiar about the woman, but he couldn’t place her. She ignored the loudmouths and shrugged out of her coat, more soldierly than ladylike. Sousa glanced at the chief’s office. Thompson and Dooley were chatting about something, but Dooley’s mouth thinned.

Thompson stalked to the doorway. “Hey, knock it off and get to work!” he barked. He caught sight of the new agent and slipped both hands in his pockets. Sousa didn’t like the appraising way he stared at her before sauntering back to Dooley’s desk. The office settled down again. Maybe she was a typist, or the new secretary. Sousa didn’t hear the clack of keys, though.

Curiosity and his belief in common decency got him out of his chair. As quietly as possible, he approached her desk. She was frowning into a file folder in her lap when he cleared his throat.

“I have three sisters,” he said, glancing toward the offending agents. “They shouldn’t have welcomed you like that. I’m sorry.”

“You didn’t do anything,” the woman replied in a crisp English accent. She said it briskly enough that he couldn’t tell if it was forgiveness or an accusation. She didn’t break eye contact either.

He offered his hand. “Daniel Sousa. I do analysis, mostly.”

She took it, but kept her seat. “Peggy Carter. Command, decryption and strategy.”

Sousa canted his head. “They’re hiring women for field work now?” He was impressed — it sounded progressive. It sounded interesting.

But Carter’s jaw only grew tighter. “That’s my past experience,” she said.

He stole a look at her tower of files. They were labeled as phone tap requests. Carter kept eyeing him suspiciously from beneath a perfectly tweezed brow. “Well, I’m just up there,” he said, pointing. “Did anyone show you around? I can give you the tour later, if you like.”

“Thank you, Agent Sousa, but I have a meeting with Chief Dooley at the moment.” She rose with a perfunctory smile and marched off from the other side of her desk. Dooley had Li and O’Hanrahan in his office for a dressing-down, but Carter knocked anyway and strolled right in. Odds were 50/50 on whether Dooley was expecting a meeting just then. As the two junior agents slunk out, visibly relieved, Sousa heard raised voices. After Carter stormed out, only a short time later, she didn’t speak to anyone for the rest of the day.

*

It was the next morning, as he was strapping on the leg, that he remembered. That _LIFE_ magazine at the rehab hospital. Lucasic yapping away. 

Jesus. Carter had been with the SSR years before anyone else in that bureau. She was being back-benched too.

*

Dooley’s office was supposed to be soundproof, but as Sousa took his seat, he and everyone else couldn’t help hearing the tail end of another brawl. “—and if you think this work is beneath you, Agent Carter, then I got no compunction telling Chester Phillips that he oversold me on taking you in.”

Whatever’s Carter’s response after that wounded silence, it was muted. She shut the door quietly behind her and paused. Everyone was watching, but it was Sousa who caught the white-hot force of her glare.

He did have three sisters, and he knew when not to interfere. He kept himself open, though. If they passed each other, he smiled. If he needed a second set of eyes, he asked her first. Carter’s hostility simmered down to a kind of neutral state, and she only snapped at the people who stepped on her. If he led by example, maybe the rest of the office would let her in.

One Thursday in February, Sousa and Carter caught the elevator down with a number of other agents. The smell of cologne overwhelmed the car. “Berkeley, you romancing a skunk or something?” Robinson remarked, and everyone relaxed.

“Matter of fact, I’m stepping out with a chorus girl from _Billion Dollar Baby_ ,” Berkeley announced. “She’s showing me around after the 8 o’clock.”

“What are you going to do when your pheromones wear off?” Sousa said. In the puzzled silence, only Carter smirked to herself. He held up his hands. “Isn’t this the Strategic Scientific Reserve? Jeez.”

“Sure thing, poindexter,” Berkeley drawled, to chuckles.

Robinson turned to Carter. “What about you, Peggy? You all set up for a good time tonight?”

Sousa stiffened, but Carter replied, bored, “St. Valentine’s Day celebrates the agonizing martyrdom of a Roman bishop. What sort of good time should I be looking for, precisely?”

“Oh, I bet you know what to look for,” Robinson snickered, and began whistling a patriotic jingle. Carter turned her head, staring hard at him. He didn’t falter, and sauntered away, still whistling, once the door opened. The elevator emptied, but Peggy stayed behind. Sousa opened his mouth, but she just smiled.

“You know, I’ve just remembered something I left back at my desk. See you tomorrow, Agent Sousa?”

“All right,” he said, reluctant. He ate dinner alone that night, since he’d utterly forgotten the holiday, and the incident weighed on him. At the morning staff meeting, Dooley debriefed the room on suspicious biochemical traces found during a routine sewer test near the old Stark Expo site.

“This is why we hire for every kind of expertise,” Dooley announced. “Agent Robinson came to us with an extensive firsthand understanding of the infrastructure beneath London, thanks to his time as an MP during the Blitz. I’m putting him on lead for this case, since he knows just what to look for where. We know your whole work history for a reason, and this is it. You can all learn from him.”

Robinson, eyes wide, swallowed and said faintly, “Thank you, Chief Dooley.” At the back of the room, Carter nonchalantly removed a pencil from behind her ear to take notes.

Sousa caught up with her after. “For future reference, maybe around June,” he murmured, “I’m an expert at beaches. Something really big could go down at Jones Beach around then.”

Carter smiled. “You know what I did last night, Agent Sousa?”

“It wasn’t filing employee records, was it?”

She wagged her eyebrows. “I ate a box of sweets and read Simone Weil. It was very refreshing.”

He nodded. “Slightly cheerier than St. Valentine.”

“I recommend it,” she said, strolling backward to her seat. “You know all that chocolate will be on sale after this weekend?”

*

The temperature dead-dropped during the back half of February. Sometimes Sousa found himself panicking on his front step. The insides of his teeth froze; the flicker of a street lamp was a magnesium flare above the pines. “At least we’re not in Bastogne,” he’d mutter to himself. The guys from his unit told him they’d say that now, any time someone got to griping too much. It was a good reminder. He’d move off the stoop then and push himself toward work.

The SSR was spinning its wheels. Their last few victories — a jet fuel-siphoning ring, a Roxxon scientist selling to the mob, a miracle cure that was nothing but heroin — had all been reactive. Sousa wanted a retro analysis of the available cases. “We’re coming up on some big anniversaries,” he told Dooley during their weekly one-on-one. “V-E Day, someone might try something flashy. If there’s a pattern under any of this stuff, we can get in front of a bigger problem before it bites us in the ass.”

Dooley leaned back in his chair. “You think there’s a pattern?”

“Could be. Shell companies, neighborhood buddies, shared suppliers. It can’t hurt to take a survey.”

“And you’d do this alone?”

Sousa shrugged. “If you want a memo by Thanksgiving. I could use one good agent, though. That could get it done much faster. Is Carter assigned to anything?”

Dooley exhaled, and massaged his temple. “I’m not giving you Carter.”

Sousa sat up a little straighter. “I’m — sorry, sir, but it just seemed to me that she’s a capable analyst and she’s been kicking her feet around.”

Dooley held up a hand. “Listen, you have to understand: I took her in as a favor to General Phillips. During the war, she got attached to a prestige project, so now Phillips wants her to keep feeling good about herself.” Sousa opened his mouth, but Dooley grimaced. “She’s not like you or me, Sousa. She was an assistant based in the London HQ. Don’t go mistaking her big ideas for competence or experience.”

“Then with respect, what’s she doing here?”

Dooley waved him off. “She’s a pretty face with a loud mouth. I got enough on my hands trying to keep her occupied. Who do you want?”

Sousa lifted his shoulders. “The best man for the job, I guess.”

“I’ll give you Thompson,” Dooley said. “Man’s got a head on his shoulders,” he continued, despite Sousa’s startled look. “And he was in the field for most of those busts. He can give you a first-person perspective. Any problems?”

“No sir. Thank you.” He reached for his crutch.

“Carter’s still your colleague,” Dooley said as Sousa rose. “No funny business.”

“Not at all, chief,” he said. “I just want us to be fair.”

He glanced at Carter on his way out. There was no funny business. What did the chief think he had to say that for? She was sitting at her desk, staring into the middle distance. She looked caught a million miles away. Everyone ignored her, or stayed oblivious. Her expression was stricken — there was no mistaking it. But if even Dooley had warned him off looking sweet on Carter, the rest of the bureau had already pegged Sousa for a sucker. Whatever this moment was, he told himself, she could surely handle it.

Carter left her desk for a while, but she came back with her face schooled. As she swept past his desk, he thought, _You didn’t do anything,_ but shied away from it.

*

It was the first Monday in March by the time Thompson sat down with Sousa. “I just want to clarify,” he said languidly, tipping back in the conference room chair. “As I understand it, you ask me about something you only saw on paper and I tell you how much more exciting it was in the field.”

“Yeah…” Sousa tossed half the pile of case files toward Thompson. “It’s a lot like that, in the way that a firefight is a lot like swabbing the decks.” 

“You’re riding my ass about the Navy and you’re the one with the peg leg?” But he scooted forward and picked up the top folder. “What is it you’re looking for?”

“It’s a surprise,” Sousa said.

Thompson didn’t open his file. “You don’t know.”

“I’ll know it when I see it.”

“All right.” Thompson slumped back in his chair. “I could use a break from real work anyway.”

Neither of them spoke for a few minutes. The only sound in the room was the scratch of Sousa’s pen as he took notes — until Thompson whistled at someone passing by. “Hey, Marge! Carter!”

She hesitated in the hallway. Sousa felt all the muscles in his back tense up. “Come on, don’t be shy,” Thompson wheedled. Carter pushed the door open and stood looking at them both. Thompson gestured at the table. “We’re hunkering down for some heavy lifting. How ‘bout you get us a pot of fresh coffee for the duration.”

“Don’t—no, it’s fine,” Sousa interjected. “Jack, you go get some if you like. I’ll be here.”

Thompson grinned. “Oh, no need for that. Our girl Carter can take care of it. That’s what a liaison does, isn’t it, Marge?”

“That’s uncalled for, Agent Thompson.”

He spread his hands. “Ah, and in he jumps.”

Sousa tossed his pen on the table. “Can I help you?” The sound of retreating heels distracted him. They were quick, hurried. Thompson smirked.

“This is why we need a plain girl for the office. The pretty ones all think they’re Vivien Leigh.”

Sousa pushed himself to his feet. “You have any sisters, Jack?”

He shrugged. “No.”

“Yeah, it shows.” He hustled down the corridor, trying to spot Carter. Her coat was gone from her desk. He almost tripped racing past the operators to the elevator. At the ping of doors opening, he called, “Carter! Carter!”

She turned toward him, her expression so fierce it was brittle. “What do you want?”

“Just wanted to let you know—” He took her in again, ramrod-straight and wound tight. “That I’ll hold Thompson’s arms while you take a swing at him.”

Carter didn’t laugh. “I don’t need your help to take down Jack Thompson.”

“No, I… I believe you.” They both stood there, pretending the switchboard ladies were ignoring them. The elevator rattled insistently. Carter stepped on. Without thinking, he followed. She turned and blocked the doorway, feet firmly planted. “Where are you headed?” Sousa asked.

“Home,” she growled.

“You need a coffee or something first?”

She eyed his shirtsleeves and vest. “I believe the coffee is back that way, Agent Sousa. It may need rescuing too.”

His mouth thinned. “I’m trying to help you here.”

“You needn’t.” Her voice broke, but briefly. “That may be your choice, but it’s not what I want.”

Sousa stepped back at that, stung. Carter avoided him as the doors slid shut.

When he returned, Thompson had his feet on the next chair over. “Is she bringing coffee?” he asked, guileless.

*

Someday he’d make it to Penn Station in time to catch the sunset through the windows. The evening hours were kind to the place too, though. Sousa was early for his train to Elizabeth, which meant he could stroll through the concourse, neck craned. Golden hour turned the space a beautiful honey tint. His parents used to tell him that when they were young, the stones had been rose-colored, and he could make out a tinge of that now beneath the graying marble. 

People streamed around him, neither irritated nor obsequious. Seven months ago, there’d been a war on. Whatever Dooley’s recruitment speech, things seemed more or less normal again.

“Daniel?”

Carter stood a few feet away, watching him. She squeezed a purse under one arm, trying not to look like she was doubting herself. Neither of them could be SSR here. He smiled. “Peggy. How nice to see you.”

She shifted her weight. “Are you meeting someone?”

“No, just dinner with my parents.” He gestured toward the timetable. “Got a few minutes before boarding.”

“That’s lovely.” She stepped closer, and kept her voice down. “They’re close?”

He shrugged. “Thirty minutes. Not too bad. What about you, do you have plans?”

She looked at her feet briefly. “I’m headed to Brooklyn.”

“Meeting friends?” he tried.

“No.” A pained look flickered over her face, but she composed herself. “I just haven’t been yet.”

Sousa nodded, then smiled again. “Well, keep yourself out of trouble.”

“Too late for that.” She pressed her lips together. “I’m sorry I blew up at you before.”

He held up a hand. “Thompson was being a real horse’s ass.”

“That’s nothing new. But it wasn’t because of that.” Carter sighed. “I usually keep much better control of myself.”

“Hey. Nobody’s perfect.”

Carter went still. He was in her line of sight, but he didn’t think she was looking at him. “Hard as it is to accept,” she said, then smiled. “I had better go.”

“Of course.” He dipped his chin. “Have a good time in Brooklyn.”

“Enjoy dinner with your parents.”

Maybe he shouldn’t have watched her walk off, but even working to vanish into a crowd, Carter seemed lonely. He kept thinking about that, as the dark countryside and the lit windows in buildings slid back behind the train.

Father Ribeiro was waiting for him at the Elizabeth platform, boxy and animated in his too-big black wool coat. “Your mother forgot something for the roast — carrots, I think,” he said. “They asked me to give you a lift.”

“Thank you,” said Sousa. The inside of Ribeiro’s parish car smelled vaguely of old cigarettes and leather oil. Sousa settled into the passenger seat, his crutch between his legs. Ribeiro muttered as the engine turned over and eventually puttered to life.

“Something on your mind?” he asked, in the silence after their small talk had run dry.

“A colleague of mine,” Sousa said. “I think she’s having a hard time right now.”

“With the work?” Ribeiro raised a bushy eyebrow. “I understand it’s trying, what you’re doing.”

“No. Well, yes, but not because it’s too difficult.” Sousa looked out the side window. “I think she’s missing someone she lost in the war.”

“Ah,” said Ribeiro. “The loss of a loved one.”

“Yeah.” He readjusted his seat — the socket was biting into his leg. “I thought about asking her with me, actually. As a gesture. I don’t think she has anybody in New York.”

“Your parents would think you were sweet on her,” Ribeiro said.

“Chief Dooley would think I was sweet on her.”

“Are you?”

“No,” he said quickly. “I just wish…”

Ribeiro glanced at him. “What do you wish, Daniel?”

They pulled up to his parents' house. “That I could tell her,” he said. “You know. That something comes next.”

“Yes.” Ribeiro put the car in park. “She’ll get there too.” He laid both hands on the wheel. “In the meantime, I hope that roast isn’t getting cold.”

“Right! Right.” Sousa tugged the stiff latch and popped open the door with his shoulder. “Thanks for the ride.” Ribeiro smiled and told him to give his parents his best. Sousa watched as he drove off.

When he stopped at the top of the front steps, he paused. He could see his breath on the air, but it wasn’t biting. The radio was playing inside, a slow Bing Crosby number. Sousa’s mind went in straight lines for once. It settled. He stepped over the threshold without knocking. A light was on in the living room. His shoulders relaxed; the familiar voices drew him to the kitchen.

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to my excellent beta for spot-checking the parts that needed ironing out and reassuring me that the story worked. Many thanks also to an old fandom of mine, which might be screamingly obvious but I'm trying to lie low until reveals. Thanks finally to LeesaPerrie for the prompt — hope you enjoyed the story, even if it's short on Bernard the Flamingo. :)


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